


Watch What Happens

by pylades



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-19 02:59:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2372003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pylades/pseuds/pylades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is big, Jack-y, don't screw it up.</p><p>(Or modern AU Jack plans a proposal.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watch What Happens

_All I know is I don’t know what to say  
Or the right way to say it  
This is big, Jack-y, don’t screw it up  
This is the rest of your life you’re planning_

 

It has to be special. It has to be big. This much Jack has decided.

He borrowed Davey’s laptop to google ‘engagement ideas’ (he just knows if he used the computer in their apartment, he’ll forget to clear the cache and Katherine will see what he’s planning), but google isn’t any help.

And Pinterest? Pinterest really just makes him anxious as hell. They’ve got a small apartment in New York City - building a TARDIS for a proposal was just impractical. (Cool, but impractical.)

Davey, traitor that he is, lets the engagement plan slip to Sarah. Sarah fills his email box with links - theknot, wedding proposals that don’t suck, etsy …

Jack finally sets gmail to direct her emails to spam.

It’s impossible not to compare his ring against the expensive, huge ones that Jack sees online. He pulls out the small box and pops it open, imagining the sneer Katherine’s father would probably direct at it.

But Katherine’s not a diamond girl - that much he knew. She’d gotten into a fight with her mother about conflict minerals just last month.

And Katherine would never approve of him blowing multiple months’ pay on a ring. Not when they had so many other responsibilities.

Anyway, he thought this through when he bought the ring. He pictured her hands, covered with ink from the pens she preferred to write her first drafts with, and the jewelry she typically wore. She needed something that wasn’t dainty - he knew the way she banged her hands against things when making a point.

The guy who sold it to him assured Jack that the ring had survived the past 100 years of wear, it could withstand a young journalist who gestured a lot. (And he means a lot.) It wasn’t a diamond (the clerk said as if that was a turn-off), but garnets were symbolic. They meant passionate devotion - to family, to friends.

And that was Katherine. No matter how much ole Joe disappointed her, she was devoted to her father. She was there for Jack and their friends, no matter what they needed. If there was ever a gem that said Katherine Plumber (Katherine Plumber someday Kelly), it was a garnet.

So to hell with Joe and diamonds and rings that cost more than what Jack Kelly made in a year. This was the ring he was gonna propose to Katherine with … if he could figure out how.

But Jack’s not the words guy. That’s Davey. That’s Katherine.

As he’s shutting the laptop lid, his gaze catches a framed picture. It’s the one he drew of her profile, the night he first flirted with her at Medda’s place. He’s offered to draw another one for her (that was a lazy attempt and the pencil looked like crap on the newspaper), but Katherine refused. She framed it and hung it there, in their living room-slash-dining room-slash office, that first night they spent in the apartment.

That’s when Jack remembers. He might not be the words guy, but he is the artist. He pulls out his oversized art book and begins drawing. He starts with the people at the front - Sarah and Davey and Les and Crutchie and himself. His body is twisted, as if staring off into the distance.

He can’t draw Joe (doesn’t wanna), but he draws her in that not-far-off distance. She’s clearly walking toward him, in a long dress, with a delicate veil trailing behind.

He writes two words at the top of the drawing.

For sure?

Jack’s been so focused on plotting and drawing that he never heard their door open or the footsteps across the beat-up linoleum. He doesn’t realize that he has company.

At least, not until he hears her speak:

"For sure."


End file.
